over that large
numbers of young men and women, and these the most able and energetic,
devoted themselves to this foreign service, and that their brothers and
sisters at home were banded together in unions to watch their doings
and to pray for them. He found himself entirely untouched by this
enthusiasm, in spite of the beautiful expression it found in the lives
of his new friends.

But it astonished him greatly that there should be this potent energy
in the Irish Church. The utter helplessness of its Bishops and clergy in
Irish affairs, the total indifference of its people to every effort at
national regeneration, had led him to believe that the Church itself was
moribund. Now he discovered that there was in it an amazing vitality,
a capacity of giving birth to enthusiastic souls. The knowledge brought
with it first of all a feeling of intense irritation. It seemed to him
that all religions were in league against Ireland. The Roman Church
seized the scanty savings of one section of the people, and squandered
them in buying German glass and Italian marble. Were the Protestants
any better, when they spent L20,000 a year on Chinamen and negroes? The
Roman Catholics took the best of their boys and girls to make priests
and nuns of them. The Protestants were doing the same thing when they
shipped off their young men and young women to spend their strength
among savages. Both were robbing Ireland of what Ireland needed
most--money and vitality. He would not say, even to himself, that all
this religious enthusiasm was so much ardour wasted. No doubt the Roman
priest did good work in Chicago, as the Protestant missionary did in
Uganda; only it seemed to him that of all lands Ireland needed most the
service and the prayers of those of her children who had the capacity of
self-forgetfulness. Afterwards, when he thought more deeply, he found a
great hope in the very existence of all this altruistic enthusiasm. He
had a vision of all that might be done for Ireland if only the splendid
energy of her own children could be used in her service. He tried more
than once to explain his point of view. Mr. Quinn met him with blank
disbelief in any possible future for Ireland.

'The country is doomed,' he said. 'The people are lazy, thriftless, and
priest-ridden. The best of them are flying to America, and those that
remain are dying away, drifting into lunatic asylums, hospitals, and
workhouses. There is a curse upon us. In another twenty